(A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011) Celebrated as one of the most poignant stylists of his generation, the author of Eight White Nights, Call Me By Your Name, and The Proust Project here presents a luminous series of linked essays about time, place, identity, and art. From beautiful and moving pieces about the memory evoked by the scent of lavender to meditations on cities like Barcelona, Rome, Paris, and New York, André Aciman unearths some of life's most profound secrets from ordinary street corners.

"Many of these essays begin with a city ... before spiraling into images and ideas that connect with other places and times in Aciman's own well-traveled history. Born in Egypt, raised in a French-speaking Jewish family, his complex identity (is he African? French? Jewish?) confronts him with a 'fundamental distortion' that he can make sense of only by the transformative power of art.... In a brilliant piece called 'Temporizing,' Aciman examines his own propensity for filtering all experiences through the Egypt in his mind. Writing, even thinking, thus becomes 'an interminable restoration project whose purpose is to prevent all contact with the present.' With his sly self-deprecation and supple, curious mind, Aciman is the perfect guide through the mysteries of time and place."—Boston Globe